Yoga, essential oils, astrology etc: Why have they become so popular?

Over the past 2-3 years or so, I‘ve noticed a lot of my friends getting into these things and it annoys me to no end. Is this a general phenomenon or only happening in hipster bubbles? The whole pseudo spirituality movement really does my head in.

(This thread was triggered by a friend of mine starting her own artisanal soap brand)

well it's probably because the first conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter in the air element has taken place in Aquarius, indicating that this is the dawning of the age of aquarius, the age of aquariaaaaaaaaas, AQUARIAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAS!!

https://www.gannett-cdn.com/presto/2020/10/05/USAT/9cbba3ab-d676-4d20-a9b6-50321b3a7243-XXX_IMG_636410843706457881_S_1_1_NEJM0SH8.JPG

stretching and nice smells and connecting with other people through a half-serious common rubric are all kinda good tho?

I'm not sure I'd necessarily include artisanal soaps in that spectrum of pseudo spirituality ... But best keep close to your friend: Anita Roddick started the Body Shop in Brighton on a wing and a prayer, and sold it to L'Oréal for over £650m 30 years later!

sold it to the world leaders in animal testing, smh

And now there’s a Body Shop MLM too.

saw a Body Shop in Beijing, in China all cosmetics must be animal tested by law, so

This has been around forever? Doesn't seem to me to be more prevalent than in past decades. The new twist is that they are now far right wing.

I feel like yoga and astrology are in totally different worlds here. Most people who do yoga don't put any spiritual overlay on it, it's treated as a form of exercise and bodywork, like Pilates or something. Astrology actually asks you to believe in some extrascientific assertions and the renewal of its popularity is way more surprising!

essential oils is not a "hipster" thing ime. obv things can overlap but it seems more popular among the christian MLM/facebook sector. listen to "the dream" podcast from a few years ago for more about this phenomenon!

there are so many categories of these things it would be hard to make a chart. they can but don't all fit into the same groups: yoga, wellness, energy healing, essential oils, MLMs, gwyneth paltrow-type people. like some are hippies, some are hippies AND q anons, some are mormons, some are grifters, some are being grifted. and don't forget ❀ the cult of: ➥motivational speakers ➥life coaches ➥personal growth gurus ➥new-age charlatans ➥AWESOMENESS FEST

yeah i wouldn't say essential oils are hipster at all

Yoga with Adriene is the youtube equivalent of the old Jane Fonda VHS tapes, or Jack LaLanne on broadcast TV.. 'You too can do this at home!' Certainly makes it less of a starting hurdle when you can try it out on your living room floor

The broader thing here looks like "an odd thing that your years long friend suddenly gets into which is sorta cult-ish", which has happened in forever.

I guess having that happen in multiple friendships at once is hell.

i recently learned about ROLFING because i walked by a place and looked up what it was, and found it was like an office building for pseudo-medicine/"holistic" practitioners https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolfing

that wikipedia article has a link to all of the alternative medicines on the right btw, have fun

including "camel urine"

you keep Adriene's name out of your whore mouth

lol

In the US essential oils/wellness/alt medicine strikes me as a response to the cost/lack of availability/corruption of our healthcare system (and thus why it's not limited to the right or left - you might distrust doctors because of the NWO implanting microchips or because Perdue sponsors four yearly vacation retreats for them). Trying to exert agency when you feel like you have none defines a lot of contemporary American life.

otm

yeah. and people are miserable (depressed, burnt out, generally not healthy) and looking for these kinds of miracle cures w/ promises a real doctor would never make and influencers and MLMs know that.

Americans have a long, long history of falling for snake oils, tinctures, magnetic bracelets, etc... these are the new versions. The traveling medicine show has been replaced by the internet and Goop TV.

(Obv not talking about yoga here)

I love yoga with adriene

also making scented things with essential oils is fun, practical, and relatively inexpensive as crafty hobbies go. i made my own moisturizer, lip balm, deodorant, bath salts -- it was fun for a while (while I had a job) and i don't believe it was particularly trendy but like who cares? people need to soothe their frazzled nerves and doing that through homemade toiletries & natural smells i believe is 100% ok/not worthy of scorn

I don’t think anyone has beef with good smells but the “lavender oil is a replacement for SSRIs and chemo” crowd.

Green juice/smoothies belong here unless that moment has passed.

celery juice seemed to be an up and coming cure all but not sure if it's still hot

Joe Rogan sold a lot of Vitamixes for kale smoothies but that may have peaked a while back when I saw a video where a “I train UFC” guy threw a chicken breast in with his avocado and kale.

essential oils smell and make me nauseous

essential oils rule. we have a muji infuser. it really cuts through the smell of stale air in our one bedroom apartment.

(It was 100% not a parody.)

https://sated.com/

Soylent/keto miracle cure combo platter.

Drinking olive oil mixed with cocoa powder is no way to live.

kale, avocado and a chicken breast in a smoothie sounds gross but healthy as long as the chicken breast is cooked.

i don't think making ones own soap fits in here really. i'd make my own soap if i had time because i like to make things.

Celery juice was popularized by the Medical Medium. It’s such a scam!

Is the recent popularity of “inspirational quote” home wall decorations and shirts also a part of this trend?

Astrology is the one that really does my head in, especially the way it's being championed from a social justice pov (female coded, based on the knowledge of non-Western civilizations, etc.).

some proportion of that is just deliberate fantasy and/or a really effective way to troll the logic & reason crowd. the most SJW people I know of would probably dismiss astrology as essentialist and overly scientistic (rather than not enough)

the zodiac shit is western astrology anyway isn’t it

Left at 8:27 24 Jul 21

some proportion of that is just deliberate fantasy and/or a really effective way to troll the logic & reason crowd

I don't think this is even remotely true

Yeah lol ppl don't live to troll others.

And yet ILX exists...

Many people otm itt! Tokyorosemary, did you listen to the Maintenance Phase episode about the medical medium??! That was a wild ride.

I think the preeminent essential oil MLM is Young Living, they really got the white evangelical women's market sewn up hard. I think Amway primed everyone. The Dream podcast is a great introduction to that history, thanks harbl!

io: yes!

Oh lord, the Young Living guy.

I love yoga and do a few basic poses all the time on my own. I’m of the “it’s exercise and nothing more” mindset. I used to go to classes more regularly but now the thought of those fake smiley people and also $ and time keeps me away.

I live close to headquarters for some essential oils mlms (do terra and young living) in utah. It’s always been a mormon associated mlm thing afaict. Nu skin used to be another one. Tahitian Noni. Now all the health fad mlms rub shoulders with tech startups and Adobe in Lehi, it’s very weird.

Yeah I started to like yoga recently after not really getting it before. Turns out I need to stretch more as I age and as I'm not a practicing dancer anymore. I did however grow up in peak "evangelical freakout re yoga and meditation being a ruse for demons to possess school children" times. That was definitely a thing and to this day yoga is suspect among evies.

aiui that's actually a much more accurate understanding of the original depiction of yogis than the present one

I should amend that to some proportion of that which i have encountered, as in I actually know more people who pretend to be into this stuff bc of who it pisses off than people who are heavily into it, this is obviously unrepresentative of anything else

Better that people get into astrology than the Myers-Briggs test IMO.

I’m confused by all the talk of marxist leninist maoists and/or men who love men

Been going to classes and practicing yoga for nearly a decade, will start yelling about the benefits of Chakras to troll ppl.

lol I can't remember but someone called Meyers Briggs "business astrology"

People don't live their lives to troll others but they do say dumb shit on social media to troll others and dumb shit on social media is a pretty big part of any trend these days so I don't think Left is totally wrong here. That being said the acquaintances I have who are into astrology aren't trying to troll anyone, they're quite earnest.

Yoga I think is almost on the opposite path in that I think there's more ppl around now who practice it without caring in the least about any spiritual aspects of it than ever before.

Astrology and witchcraft resurgence are harmless compared to most of the things mentioned ITT. (Though there's probably an 'Uber for witchcraft' startup grift percolating somewhere.)

MLM and crystals that cure cancer stuff is obviously worse, don't think anyone would argue otherwise, but also more widely derided and debunked, in my social circle at least.

yeah i wouldn't say essential oils are hipster at all

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Friday, July 23, 2021 9:30 AM (yesterday)

it depends on yr definition of hipster? Yeah, I know a lot of people that could be called hipsters that are into essential oils / tinctures / homeopathic stuff -- but as harbl said, it's not limited to that cultural group. I personally have a cognitive line between "using things that smell nice for an aesthetic experience" and "this stuff will solve serious health problems" ... and some of my friends/social circle blur it in ways that are super awkward for me.

essential oils rule. we have a muji infuser. it really cuts through the smell of stale air in our one bedroom apartment.

― treeship., Friday, July 23, 2021 2:47 PM (yesterday)

see also: poorly ventilated bathrooms

my personal experience with essential oils is way more with mlm moms type crowd

but I def know there's levels to the game

Live. Laugh. Love. is universal

My social circle is more Nag Champa than rosemary oil when it comes to smells.

it's a little odd that people go nuts about low-VOC paint for their interior walls and then run an essential oils vaporizer 24/7

Expensive skincare brands use a lot of essential oils. I think the idea is that if your face oil is so concentrated it stings, that means it's working.

oh yeah, and i like the brand of moisturizers and hand soap called every one (e o for essential oils, get it?) because it smells good even if it doesn't moisturize that well

lol I can't remember but someone called Meyers Briggs "business astrology"

"astrology for LinkedIn users" was the version I heard

HRstrology

is this where I ask what enneagrams are and why they're so popular now, or is that a different thread

I mean I get that they're another personality typology, I just don't get why everyone suddenly got the enneagram gospel

no different than high-waisted jeans coming back

yoga is nice. essential oils smell good but probably aren't worth the investment. i have zero interest in astrology unless "float on" is involved

ever since i turned off personalized ads, i've been seeing a lot of ads on youtube that are a "marketing of masculinity" variant of this phenomenon

pendulums are freaky

Over the past 2-3 years or so, I‘ve noticed a lot of my friends getting into these things and it annoys me to no end. Is this a general phenomenon or only happening in hipster bubbles? The whole pseudo spirituality movement really does my head in.

correct

Mandatory Dr. Bronner's, citizen

I feel like there's probably a middle ground in personality assessment between diagnostic pathology and 'I'm an INFP because I was born under a full moon.'

wtf is wrong with nice soap?

probably quite alarming if you weren't aware of its existence or use until now

alert ilx mods when they become aware of salad dressing not bought in a bottle.

I think the "essential oils" in the thread title doesn't mean "nice soap," it's shorthand for "essential oils, medicinal and/or psychoactive properties ascribed to"

my salad dressing usually comes in shampoo bottles that were previously filled with shampoo

(x-post)

Yes - but in the main post groovemaan says:

(This thread was triggered by a friend of mine starting her own artisanal soap brand)

yes ^^^
i did analyze that first post in-depth trying to figure out what year they were living in.

fucking righteous post by Luna there!!

I mean the “plain scented soap” one…. Kinda corresponds to how I feel about all the “I hate this phrase” threads on ile lol